I’ve written this article so many times in so many different arenas and it’s always been well received.
I wrote it in the Forex Market and in the Sales market, I wrote it for Kindle authors and now I’m writing it for you, Teespring and the t-shirt game. The reason I tell you this is to demonstrate that it is universal across all endeavours that we set ourselves.
I wish I was able to say that this was my invention and thoughts but sadly I’m just re-purposing it. What you are about to read was developed by a fellow called Dr Richard Bandler – he invented NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and this ‘process’ that we all go through when learning something new was his invention.
If you are new into this game then this will prepare you for the road ahead. Knowing what to expect will come in handy.
If you are a seasoned pro then you will recognise the steps and if you are somewhere in the middle then you’ll probably recognise the step that you are in right now.
Either way I hope you all find this useful.
When learning a new skill, business, sport or profession there is a learning curve. This learning curve can be placed into five distinct steps to mastery.
Step One: Unconscious Incompetence. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
This is the first step you take when first discovering selling online – no matter what the product. You know that it’s a good way of making money because you’ve heard so many things about it and have seen so many people making tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.
Unfortunately, just like when you first desire to drive a car you think it will be easy. After all how hard can it be? You list a shirt, buy some ads and people buy them right?
What’s the big secret to that then – let’s get on with it!
Unfortunately, just as when you first take your place in front of a steering wheel you soon discover that you haven’t the first clue about what you’re trying to do.
You design crappy shirts that you think are good. When you start advertising you get nothing back, you try again and still make no sales. You might do this several times before you get one to ‘tip’.
You may even have some initial success, and that’s even worse – this tells your brain that this really is simple and you start to throw more money in and design even worse shirts.
Eventually and more often than not you will come away scathed and bruised. You are totally oblivious to your incompetence. You don’t know what you don’t know.
This step can last for a week or three but the market is usually a swift teacher and you move on the next stage.
Step Two – Conscious Incompetence
Step two is where you realize that there is more work involved than you thought and that you might actually have to work a few things out.
You consciously realize that you are an incompetent marketer – you don’t have the skills or the insight to turn a regular profit. This is a depressing stage.
You now set about buying courses, systems and e-books galore, read websites based everywhere from USA to the Ukraine and begin your search for the Holy Grail.
During this time you will be a nomad – you will flick from method to method day by day and week by week never sticking with one long enough to actually see if it does work. You’ll even buy courses and won’t get all the way through them before you give up on them or jump to the next shiny object.
Every time you come upon a new shiny tool you’ll be ecstatic that this is the one that will make all the difference. Only to be met with more disappointment. You’re like a painting student that thinks a different brush will turn them into Michelangelo.
You will test out new ad styles; you’ll play with design tools, list building, targeting methods and a hundred other things all in the vein hope that your ‘magic’ starts today.
You’ll start looking at different niches, in fact you will flick from one to the other, not giving one enough time to show itself to you. You’ll do scaled shirts the same as every other stage two seller is doing and you’ll copy other 1000+ sellers to find that you can’t even sell one.
When you run ads you will analyse every dollar spent – at $5 spend you begin to ‘sweat the action’ looking at ctr, ppe costs, ctw, cpm and every other metric you can think of. At ten dollars you’ll cut the ads wanting to save your money and you’ll ask questions to people equally as clueless as you. This is ‘the blind leading the blind’ stage.
You’ll go into Facebook groups and see other marketers making money and you want to know why it’s not you – you’ll ask a million questions, some of which are so dumb that looking back you’ll feel a bit silly.
You’ll then reach the point where you think that all those talking of profits are liars – they can’t be making that amount because you’ve studied and you don’t make that, you think know as much as they do and they must be lying. But they’re in there day after day and their sales just grow whilst yours falls into oblivion.
At this stage you are like an unruly teenager – the ones that make money will freely give you advice but you’re stubborn and think that you know best or you’re so confused that you don’t know what to do – you take no notice and you know better. You’ll tip a few campaigns; maybe even get a 50+ seller or two.
At this point you start to get suckered into the internet marketers new courses, Someone from Bolivia aged 13 and still showing a sign of early acne says he made a million dollars in 3 months and is willing to share all for just $67. Yep, you buy them all thinking that ‘this one might have the one thing you need’
Of course it never does.
This second step can easily last several months. This is also the step when you are most likely to give up through sheer frustration. I feel your pain because I’ve been there
I estimate that around 60% of new sellers die out in the first 3 months – they give up and this is good – think about it – if this was easy we would all be millionaires.
Another 20% keep going for 6 months or so and then just sit on the sidelines watching everyone else. They’ll throw the occasional shirt up, spend a few dollars and close it down again.
Eventually you do begin to come out of this phase. You’ve probably committed more time and money than you ever thought you would, lost a few thousand dollars and given up maybe 3 or 4 times but now it’s in your blood – you are addicted!
One day – In a split second moment you will enter stage 3.
Step 3 – The Eureka Moment
Towards the end of stage two you begin to realize that it’s not the cpm or the cpa or the ctr or ppe that makes a good seller – You realize that it’s all about two things, the shirt and the targeting.
From here on in you begin to have consistency. Nothing huge, maybe a 100+ seller and a handful of 30’s and 40’s. At this point you start to break even and shock horror- you make some profit!
You begin to produce (or buy) designs that people actually want to wear. You start to understand the audience that you have and what they like. You’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and are feeling good.
You now start to actually think about what you are doing. You learn about testing and have a few rudimentary goes at it. And you learn that this makes a difference.
Your education focus moves away from the courses that are peddled by the charlatans (can you tell I don’t like them?) and you start to read up on buyer psychology – in fact you become a vacuum cleaner for knowledge – anything that can squeeze out more profit from your campaigns.
You start to build custom audiences like crazy, look at opt in systems and buy your first autoresponder. You begin to think like a real marketer rather than a get rich quick merchant looking for the next fix. You are maturing.
You begin to stop looking at your sales on a shirt-by-shirt basis and start to look at the account as a whole. You devise various spreadsheets to present data to you in a way that you can understand
You’re learning to divorce yourself from the designs rather than hold onto them like an old lover that you didn’t want to let go. After all they are just designs right?
You also realize that although you think you have an ‘eye’ for what your niche wants that it can still surprise you and dismiss your latest masterpiece whilst at the same time someone is selling something akin to a Dr. Seuss cartoon and doing much better!
So you learn that you can’t predict what the market wants – you can only test.
You have realised in an instant that the shirt game is about one thing – consistency.
You’re now earning up to $10k a month as you move out of this phase
Step 4 – Conscious Competence
This is the part where you know what you know. You are good at this; you’re making good regular money. Sure, Facebook still throws spanners in the works every couple of weeks but you smile when others call Armageddon as the latest FB fuckup rollout hits the wires.
There are dangers in this phase. You will start to get comfortable. You’ll concentrate on niches you know have been good to you and kind of like this comfort zone you are sat in.
WARNING: THE VAST MAJORITY THAT REMAIN STOP HERE and that’s not good.
This business model is still in its infancy. The only constant thing now is change. You MUST keep learning new tricks, trying new strategies, and finding new ideas if you are to make it to the big leagues. Don’t get comfortable; don’t start enjoying your new lifestyle because the quicksand will creep up on you quicker than a quick thing.
So here’s what you are doing now – you are beginning to get into a routine. You’ll begin to have systems in place – listing Mondays, ads on Tuesdays, new designs Wednesdays, ramp or kill Thursdays etc.
You still have to think about what you are doing – but it comes much easier because of your to-do lists and the other systems that your business relies on.
You now tip more shirts than not and your advertising is getting more consistent.
In this phase you have a choice to make. You need to decide if you want the big leagues or not. Not everyone wants to play in them. Sure, we all want the 200k months, but we don’t all want to pay the price – and yes, there is a price.
You’re comfortable now – enjoy it for a while before you decide.
All the time in this phase you are earning revenues >$15k a month – it’s a nice place to be. You can stay here as long as you’d like – the longer you do, the better you get at systematizing your business.
Many people will go from stage 4 to stage 5 and back again – if they do it’s because they’ve discover that they don’t want to pay the price of the extra work that goes into getting the extra rewards.
Step Five – Unconscious Competence
This is where the ‘ballers’ live – the big players, and once you’ve arrived in their pool – you’re a medium sized fish, but you’re in a big pond, and sharks swim the waters. Money changes people – your trust should be limited here.
You now operate on autopilot. You do the same thing, day in day out. You realise that the way to the big leagues is by scaling, and you now have the systems in place to grow. Your ad spend starts to escalate – you’re now spending multiple thousands a day and you have support systems in place – you buy designs, you may have a VA to do the ‘dirty’ work of uploading designs and managing your fan pages.
Now we’re cooking – just like driving a car, every day you get in your seat and drive. You do many things now on an unconscious level. You are running on autopilot. You might team up with some people on the same level as you and have some very interesting discussions – you may even form a group or several of your own.
You’ve actually forgotten more now than the stage 3 players know.
You have your first $100k month and look for $200k next month. You are paying the price now too of long days and short nights. Working up to 18 hours a day OR you pay the price by employing staff to do it for you. If you’re greedy like me then it’s 18 hour days.
Constant learning is now the norm – every day you solve the Rubik’s cube that is Facebook and you’ve made it. Consistency is your friend.
Your chosen platform partner now treats you with lots of respect – after all you’re one of their best sellers. You get preferential treatment when it comes to new features and they ask you what they could do to help you. You become an unpaid consultant.
Finally you get access to a Facebook rep – and if you’re lucky you get one that’s actually alive!
You’re a star in the groups and forums and people listen to what you say. You recognise yourself in their questions from about a year ago. You pass on your advice but you know most of it is futile because they’re teenagers – some of them will get to where you are – some will do it fast and others will be slower – literally dozens and dozens will never get past stage two, but a few will. Every single one of them thinks they will get to the big pond, but few have what it takes.
The business is no longer exciting – in fact it’s probably boring you to bits – like everything in life when you get good at it or do it for your job – it gets boring – you’re doing your job and that’s that.
Finally you grow out of the groups and find a few choice people who you converse with about the business. You’re now in a league of your own dreaming up new and better tests that others haven’t thought of.
All this time you are honing your methods to extract the maximum profit from the market without increasing risk. It just gets better and easier – you now have ‘intuition.’
*****
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this journey and that hopefully you’ve identified with some points in here.
Remember that only 5% will actually make it to stage 5 – but the reason for that isn’t ability, its staying power and the ability to change your perceptions and paradigms as new information comes available.
It’s also the willingness to pay the price. Not everyone measures success in the same way – for me success is constantly changing, right now I’m targeting a 300k month and when that’s hit I’ll choose another longer term goal.
Here’s the thing that anyone below stage three will say. “I’m not going to take that long – I’m the one that will make all this happen inside a month”
You won’t. One thing you cannot buy, cannot be taught and cannot accelerate is this thing called ‘time’. Time gives you experience. It cannot be bought or sold, only lived through.
If you are new to this game then I’d like to suggest that you take your time. Find out who is worth listening to. Be very careful with the questions you ask – simple ones like ctw, ppe or wc? Are really annoying to anyone at level 3 or above because it shows that you can’t be bothered to read through the groups or put in the work – you’re looking for the easy answer and there isn’t one.
The magic bullet does not exist
And if you’re in stage 3 and you’re thinking about giving up I have one piece of advice for you….
Ask yourself the question: “how many years would you go to college if you knew for a fact that there was a million dollars a year job at the end of it?”
Take care and go sell some shirts.
Good Luck
Glyn Williams
